Epic Trans Alps Cycling Trip - Part VI

Introduction

I’ll bet I know just what you’re thinking: “Damn it, Dana, stop living in the past!” And it’s true, I can’t seem to stop blogging about a week in France that ended over a month ago. The cycling legend Eddy Merckx once said, “Compared to cycling, life is much easier,” and he might as well have added “though less interesting.” Frankly, nothing I’ve done since my Epic Trans Alps trip has been nearly as blog-able as this, so here I go again. But I promise this is the last lap. Here I tell the tale of the final day of the tour, and my unspectacular meltdown on Alpe d’Huez.

(If you’ve somehow missed the rest of this series, Part I is here, Part II is here, Part III is here, Part IV is here, and Part V is here.)

Breakfast

It is only because breakfast is so good at a fine French hotel that I would ever bother to write (home or here) about it. But it was a big deal for me, especially on Day 7 of this tour, because I was pretty convinced the rest of the day would be a fairly miserable slog through the cold and wet. The forecast was for persistent rain and drizzle, and I was pretty well knackered from the previous six days. I went into this meal figuring it would be the highlight of my day. Here’s the view out my window that morning:

This time there was no hi-tech coffee machine; a guy at the bar asked what I’d like. This is a bit like a barber asking me how I want my hair cut: the answer is, “I don’t fricking know, okay? You’re the professional, you figure it out!” As I blogged before, coffee in France mystifies me. I wanted to ask for an Americano but apparently only Americans know what that is. I think I asked for a latte but who cares, when the pastries are really the point? The problem was, for the first time all week, there weren’t any. I was about to panic when one of the hotel folks said, perhaps in French, that the patisserie hadn’t yet delivered them. This is about like saying, “Soon, you can look forward to your happiness quotient doubling.” So I created this basic plate just to tie me over until the pastries.

Pretty tasty for just the opening act! I thought that little wrapped “Président” item would be cheese, but it was butter—the first butter I’d had for my bread all week. The meat was sufficiently tasty that I didn’t feel jaded, despite having eaten cured meats two to three times a day all week. And the bread: well, just look at it … glorious. And then, after a few minutes, the pastries arrived. There was a bit of a stampede for the basket but there was plenty to go around. I’ve never had such fresh pastry and it was as good as it looks. I could have roared with pleasure.

Col de Lautaret

A couple thousand calories later, it was time to face the music. Leg warmers, arm warmers, thermal base layer, long-sleeve jersey, and my big black Stay-Puft Marshmallow Jacket … it all came out. Fortunately I was in good company: true to their word, Craig and Ian hung back with me as we set out on this (albeit only Category 1) climb, the Col du Lautaret. The evening before, upon hearing the weather forecast, I’d considered dropping back to the Trans B group that only does two climbs instead of three, but my pals promised to ride with me to provide moral support, no matter how feeble my pace.

We were surprised to see that several peaks which hadn’t had snow on them the day before now did.

The Col de Lautaret, from this direction, honestly isn’t that big a deal. It’s only 4%, albeit for over seven miles. A bit of a slog, of course, but we enjoyed the view. Here, you can see that Ian’s knickers aren’t even in a twist.

Why do cyclists wear knickers? What’s the point in not taking the fabric all the way to the ankle? Is it to save weight? Or is it to create a cold patch on your leg to help you appreciate that you’re not just in shorts?

Okay, fine, I’ll try to speed up the report or we’ll be here all day. Eventually we reached the Lautaret summit, where it meets the turnoff to the fearsome Col du Galibier we’d braved the day before. I guess all the stickers on that sign are what passes for graffiti in France. (In much of the American West, the sign would be full of bullet holes.)

We set off on a fairly long descent … another fun one, except for the long, poorly lit tunnels. It’s odd … when I raced here in 2003 and 2006, I really enjoyed the tunnels and didn’t remember finding them frightening. This time around all I could think of was running over a rock, crashing, and getting run over.

Col de Sarenne

We stopped abruptly at a turnoff, toward the little town of Mizoen where I’d stayed both times I did La Marmotte. This was the base of the Col de Sarenne, an Hors Categorie climb eight miles long averaging like 7.5%. It starts off pretty harsh, at 12%, but check it out … the sun managed to come out after all!

Soon enough we passed through Mizoen, which is just as darling as I’d remembered it.

You know how when something is really ballyhooed, and you start getting really excited about it, you sometimes start to worry that it won’t meet up with your expectations? You know, like what just happened with “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” that left you disconsolate by not totally rocking your world? Just kidding, of course I know nothing about the Taylor Swift movie and whether or not it lived up to its hype. I’m just mentioning it for the halo effect, to draw people to albertnet. Taylor Swift! Taylor Swift! Taylor Swift!

Okay, so anyway, earlier in the week I had really looked forward to (and dreaded) the Col de la Loze and the Col de la Madeleine, based on their reputations, and of course the Galibier had loomed large since I’d been destroyed by it years ago. But I really hadn’t heard much about the Col de Sarenne, so it had nothing to live up to. So, what a surprise! It ends up being the most beautiful climb of the whole week (which is saying something—we did 18 of them). It sure helped that the unexpectedly sunny weather seemed to be holding up.

The three of us had a very pleasant time, chatting merrily as we pedaled along, not really suffering at all. Craig was bound and determined to get at least one good photo of Ian and of me, and took several hundred. I tried to warn him that I’m not photogenic but he didn’t want to listen. I watched the sky along the summit ridge warily, expecting to see rainclouds move in, but there was nothing but sunshine. And we had no shortage of fun switchbacks:

Do I need to say the views were stunning? I do not.

All this being said, it’s a hella long climb and a couple kilometers from the summit I ran out of water, if not steam. This is where it’s so nice knowing you have a van waiting ahead to replenish you.

(I will acknowledge that in my last post I bagged on a fellow rider for riding on the wrong side of the road, and here above I seem to be doing the same thing. The difference is, the Col de Sarenne is really just one lane anyway, and besides, it was so peaceful and remote up there, with the visibility so good, this behavior wasn’t exactly reckless.)

As we neared the summit, the grade got steeper, and more importantly we had less mountain to shelter us from the wind, which really picked up. I really had to dig deep to push through it, apparently. I say “apparently” because only upon viewing the below video did I even recall having to make much of an effort. I’d just remembered the Sarenne as just a lovely, peaceful climb, until I saw the footage and thought, oh yeah, that was pretty hard.

I now remember feeling relieved when we finally reached the top. It’s like until that moment I’d only been pretending the climb was no big deal; now, surrounded by the majesty of the summit, I felt a tinge of … well, not menace, exactly, but the great power of nature. There’s a starkness to these places even when the weather is gorgeous.

Having failed to get a portrait-with-summit-sign since the Col de Madeleine, I took a moment for this one.

Gosh, look in my eyes there … it really does look like I’d been suffering. I almost look traumatized. Is it possible my sweet memory of this climb is all wrong, having been sugar-coated by the camaraderie I’d enjoyed on the way up? Is that how this works? And do I remember the previous day’s Col du Granon as having been brutal only because I’d faced it alone? Probably not, but … possibly?

Note above that the Sarenne summit is 1,999 meters. It’s not 2,000, and whoever placed this sign felt it important not to round up. No wonder this climb didn’t seem as hard as the Madeleine … it’s a full meter lower!

Here’s a nice aerial shot Ian got of our picnic site, having had the energy, somehow, to scamper up a hill to snap it.

We descended a bit and then had some rollers to climb over, which—being unexpected—made for some psychic discomfort. The long road curled around here and there and eventually brought us to the summit of Alpe d’Huez from the side you don’t normally see. We even did a little of the descent before peeling off to add a bunch of unnecessary extra mileage to our day. We got a sneak preview of what lay ahead.

We rolled up and over some uncategorized climb, then had an oily gravel descent, and then shed some clothing at the van. For the first time, the day was outright warm. We rode into a headwind along a bike path that I think was a false flat, maybe 1% uphill. Our leader was hauling ass, and clinging to his wheel was like motorpacing. Eventually we reached the base of the dreaded Hors Categorie Alpe d’Huez, a legendary climb that has featured in the Tour de France 32 times.

Alpe d’Huez

It had been gradually dawning on me, over the last ten miles, that my energy was basically all used up. We’d ridden for two hours since the Col de Sarenne summit, and I was fried. Whereas I’d felt sucker-punched by the Col du Granon the day before, having failed to imagine how hard it would be, I was fully dreading this one. Sure, you could say it’d be easier this way, Alpe d’Huez being the “devil I knew,” but it was still the devil.

Craig and Ian, having fulfilled their promise to ride with me over the first two climbs, dropped me instantly when this third and final climb started. Alpe d’Huez is almost nine miles, at an average grade of 7.7%, and it starts at over 11%. I started to ask myself, “Can I even do this?” but the answer was immediate and obvious: “I have to … our hotel is at the summit.”

At least the weather was perfect … maybe a little hot, but that would change with the altitude. The scenery was lovely which made the unpleasantness of the climb almost confusing. It was like if I were a teenager again, on a first date, marveling at how beautiful my date is and wondering why she keeps stabbing me in the belly with a steak knife.

There are, famously, 21 switchbacks on this climb, so you can look down at where you were just moments ago, and feel a welcome sense of progress.

It seemed the good weather would hold up, so I got to enjoy the impressive clouds (which we don’t really get in California).

As my power output steadily faltered, the length between switchbacks seemed to draw out. I began longing for the switchbacks, both because they indicated progress toward the summit, and because they tended to be a bit shallower than the straight sections. I gradually nibbled away at the climb. Think of how sprightly a helium balloon is, and now think of the same balloon the day after the party, when it’s wilted and shriveled a bit and is dragged toward the floor by its string. That’s how I felt. Whenever possible I peered over the side to confirm I was actually getting somewhere.

The switchbacks on Alpe d’Huez are numbered, in descending order as you climb, so you can mark your progress, like a countdown. Each number sign commemorates a past Alpe d’Huez winner. I kept a close eye out for this one:

Andy is from my hometown of Boulder, Colorado. He achieved a stunning solo victory on this mountain back in 1992. Is there any similarity between his feat here and mine? Yes, actually: though it’s somewhat hard to tell, and actually even kind of hard to believe, he and I are of the same species. Yeah, seriously!

Well, there’s not much more to tell. Eventually, inevitably, I did make the summit. I have a selfie of how I looked at the finish; it was one of those accidents where you grab your smartphone and go to activate the outward-facing camera but instead you see—gasp!—your own haggard mug. The horror! In this photo I look so deflated and gaunt, it’s like someone had put a 2x4 on either side of my face and pushed them together to squeeze all my water out. (Hell no, I’m not posting the photo here—what is this, Facebook?)

It’d have been nice to collapse at this point, and maybe just sit on the ground for a while, but it was time to remove my saddle, pedals, and bike computer from the rental bike and return it to the staff. Then I checked out the picnic table, with its usual assortment of sandwich fixings, chips, fruit, and drinks, but I just didn’t have the energy to take anything. Instead I slowly stamped my tired way up the long staircase into the hotel. I made it to the lobby and was so blown I actually started to hallucinate, imagining all manner of stuffed sheep in there.

After I found my room, showered, and rested up a bit, I returned to the lobby and discovered that the sheep were real. Well, not real, exactly. I mean, they were fake, of course, but weren’t figments of my imagination after all. Somehow this bizarre lobby made sense in the moment. I hella lounged in a big furry armchair.

Half an hour later Ian, Craig, and I went for a little walk. I can’t imagine why, other than it being a nice evening, and the fact of our being tourists (sshhh!—don’t tell anyone!).

Dinner

After a beer at the bar we headed to the dining room and before long were served this diced tomato thing with some white stuff on top that could have been cream, cheese, butter, or something in between. We didn’t care; it was delicious whatever it was.

We were starving and there was some good bread, and word got out that somebody had managed to procure some olive oil and balsamic vinegar in little matching decanters. There was much hubbub as adjacent tables started asking for them. The waiters seemed to want to hush the whole thing up. As at every dinner we had in France, the staff seemed bent on everyone eating their (excellent) bread plain.

The next course arrived: a beautiful mushroom risotto.

I tried to make it last but I was ravenous and it was gone in like a minute. We all speculated on what the next course would be. Meat, of course, but what exactly? Maybe a big steak? The night was getting better and better. And then, to our great shock, dessert was served.

I was incredulous. I mean, yeah, the dessert was artful and architectural and all, but WTF?! Where was the entrée? Was this meal really almost over? It was. I suppose the dessert was tasty but I was too distracted by the void in my stomach to properly enjoy it. Kind of like if somebody told you a really funny joke but at a funeral.

Breakfast

Well, I was a bit miffed but not for long … it’s hard to hold a grudge at the end of such a beautiful, unforgettable week of biking and dining across the French Alps. Meanwhile, breakfast the next morning was off the chain. Everything was just perfect—even the grapefruit juice was fresh squeezed.

Before we hit the road for the long drive back to Geneva and the longer flight home, I spent a moment gazing out from my hotel room balcony. Wow … what a trip.

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From the Archives: Return to La Marmotte Part II

Introduction

This is the Part II of the heart-racing (for me) tale of racing La Marmotte, a 108-mile cyclosportive race in the French Alps. This was my second attempt at this race after my disastrous effort three years before.

Where Part I left off, I was a bit more than halfway through the race, and about three quarters of the way up the infamous Col du Galibier, a brutal 11-mile climb to a summit of almost 8,700 feet. I hadn’t cracked like in 2003, but I was really tiring out. My legs were getting heavier and heavier. I was having trouble keeping up with a Belgian guy I’d ridden with the whole race, who was smooth and consistent and whom, not long before, I’d actually suspected of holding me back. Ha! As if.

Return to La Marmotte Part II – July 8, 2006

We passed a guy who had cracked—I could tell by how he was slumped over the handlebars, and by his sunken face, and by his expression. Poor bastard. He looked miserable, and hateful. He hated me for passing him. He hated himself for having cracked. He hated the mountain for what it was doing to him. My heart went out to the guy. Thinking back three years to my first horrible trial on the Galibier, I knew exactly what he was going through. I thanked my lucky stars I hadn’t blown up this year. At least, not thus far…

Three kilometers from the summit the Belgian was incredulous. “How long does it stay this steep?” he asked. For some reason it gave me some relief to say, “It actually only gets harder from here to the summit.” I guess I was reassured to know that everybody else on this mountain was suffering too. Of course I’m dying! Everybody’s dying! That’s just what you do on the Galibier, you die! That’s what it’s for!

But even if my spirits were restored slightly, my legs were as bad as ever. Gradually I began to slip back from the Belgian. I was on the ropes. But I still hadn’t cracked … thank God I’d been pacing myself. (Looking at my performance graphs later, I see that I hadn’t really slowed that much. My power went from 242 watts on the first half of the climb to 232 on the second; my heart rate dropped from 154 to 151. Not huge losses, considering the cumulative effort and the sheer altitude of the Galibier.)

About a kilometer from the top (I was thinking in metric units now, probably because they’re smaller), the Belgian had a clear gap, but he looked back, saw me, and slowed up a bit. I’d been completely wrong earlier—he was stronger than I, after all—but I was also right: he knew he’d benefit from my help on the descent, and now he was willing to lose a few seconds on the climb to get it.

We crested the summit and I checked my stopwatch: almost exactly five hours. In terms of our goal of finishing in under 7 hours, we were fifteen minutes behind schedule. But who said it takes an hour fifteen to get to the base of Alpe d’Huez? It was a friend of the Belgian’s who’d said that, and he was probably a climber, meaning a smallish rider. I knew full well from team time trailing that the biggest guys are best suited to flat or downhill terrain. I wasn’t ready to concede my goal of seven hours for the race—not here, forty miles from the finish. I decided to hold nothing back on the descent, and then take my lumps on Alpe d’Huez.

We flew along the road, beautifully carving up the corners. The Belgian was fearless, and—better yet—skillful. We started passing guys, and they latched on. We took a sharp right after the summit of the Col de Lautaret and the grade lessened. I hammered at the front of our group to keep the speed up. Very few guys in our group, which numbered about ten, were willing to help. I gestured, silently exhorting the guys to take their turns, but largely in vain. The Belgian and a couple others took some pulls, but I was driving most of the time. I wasn’t bitter: I didn’t think anybody was taking advantage, per se—they were just fried. Besides, it didn’t really matter; if I could rest even a quarter of the time, that was a huge benefit. My legs felt really good. Not counting a couple of short climbs, the average grade was only about 3%, yet we averaged about 28 miles per hour.

But that second short climb . . . ouch. It really slapped me down. It was only about three quarters of a mile at 4%, but I almost got dropped from the group. My legs were burning and alarms were going off in my head. I was right on the edge, trying to keep from getting gapped, when the Belgian came by. (He’d actually gotten dropped from our group earlier, and had had to claw his way back on.) “Don’t give up,” he said. I dug deep and stayed with the group. Thankfully, I was fine again once we resumed descending.

Through the last tunnel, I forgot to put my sunglasses up. It so was poorly lit in there, I couldn’t see a thing, and to stay in my lane I had to sight along the headlights of oncoming cars. A big gob of sludgy water dropped from the ceiling of the tunnel right through a vent in my helmet, and oozed over my head like a cracked egg.

Shortly before the base of Alpe d’Huez, we caught a large group, at least twenty riders. As I’d seen before, on the flat section before the Télégraphe, nobody wanted to pull hard. This time I didn’t mind—I appreciated the short rest before the big climb. I certainly hadn’t held anything back; the question now was, how much would I have left in the tank? We turned right, to begin our final climb. I looked at my stopwatch: 6:02:00. We’d made up a ton of time.

Before I could attack Alpe d’Huez, I had to stop to refuel. My bottles were empty and I’d eaten all eight of my gels. I don’t know how the guys in my group had managed to save anything in their bottles, but almost all of them, the Belgian included, blew right past the feed station. I never even considered doing that—it would be like ignoring the oil light on my car’s dashboard. I handed my bottle over and asked for Coke. It was handed back filled with about two inches of Coke and six inches of foam, and I had to beg for more. I got my other bottle filled with water, and, hands shaking, poured in powdered drink mix from a baggie I’d brought along. The stop took me less than two minutes but felt like a lot more.

Right away I knew I wasn’t going to make it up Alpe d’Huez in anything close to an hour. My legs were toast. I couldn’t get my heart up to 150. Still, I didn’t have the sensation of having cracked. I was like a flashlight when the battery is slowly dying and the bulb burns orange instead of white. The important thing was to hold out hope, to keep my head together, to fight off despair. I thought back to my last Marmotte, and how for the entire Alpe d’Huez climb I had Ravel’s “Bolero” stuck in my head—that plodding, repetitive prison sentence of a song—and now I searched around my brain for something more upbeat, more energizing, more inspirational. I came up with Soundgarden’s “Like Suicide.” There is of course nothing suicidal about bicycle racing but this song had the right energy.

It’s hard to describe the rush that comes from being an American amateur getting to race on a legendary French climb like Alpe d’Huez. I suppose it’s like a Little League baseball player getting to play in Yankee Stadium. The problem is, it’s like that Little Leaguer is also batting against a professional pitcher, swinging wildly at a ball that’s going 100 mph—yeah, like I’m going to hit that! After three other brutal climbs, getting past the first switchback of Alpe d’Huez felt like enough work for the day. And I had twenty more?

Still, I wasn’t beaten yet. Occasionally my spirits were lifted when I’d need to shift into a higher gear. After each switchback, the grade eases slightly, and if you can overcome the instinct to rest on these sections, you can shave some time and increase your speed slightly. Shifting up really helped my morale, by reminding me that I still had some control over my pace, instead of simply trying to survive.

There were a lot of spectators. Not the mobs you get at the Tour de France, of course, but it’s impressive that anybody at all turned out to stand along this sweltering, exposed road and watch a few thousand amateurs flogging themselves, with nothing on the line but their pride. I was also struck by the low-key response of this audience. Though the event was enough of a spectacle to bring them to the mountain, it wasn’t enough to draw them into the emotional swelter of the racers’ collective psyche. It’s a real contrast to what I’m accustomed to; American spectators scream and yell and clap, no matter who or where you are, as though they’re conditioned to do it. At La Marmotte, spectators seldom yell; they seem to be quietly witnessing the athletes’ progress up the hill, occasionally clapping softly and murmuring appreciation (I heard one man say “Chapeau”). If spectators were pets, Americans would be dogs—barking, jumping around, tails wagging—and the French would be cats, coolly observing from a comfortable perch.

The entire time I cranked up Alpe d’Huez I felt I was on the verge of cracking. I wasn’t even thinking about seven hours anymore; that milestone came and went without my notice. Every few minutes I passed somebody; a little more often somebody passed me. The oppressive heat gradually subsided as I gained altitude.

[The photo above is at the penultimate switchback, about two miles from the finish. Note the spectator kicking back in the lawn chair.]

Finally I passed the last switchback sign and started the final slog. When I saw the last uphill section, there were three or four guys struggling up it, and I poured on as much power as I could muster, passing them just before the top. Now I’d done it—I’d have to hammer the flat stretch to the finish to stay ahead of them. I put it in the big ring and sprinted along, riding on fumes, trying to will the home stretch to come into view. I was more than blown, more than knackered. I’d had the stuffing knocked out of me. I was . . . rendered.

I hit the downhill, fenced-off section and felt like I was flying, until I came around the final left-hand turn. To my surprise and horror, the final straightaway was slightly uphill this year, and I could barely keep the big ring turning. I was underwater. I heard my mom cheering, and I crossed the line.

I looked at cyclometer: my riding time was 7:18:00: about five minutes faster than the last time. A bit better, but just a bit. Then I looked for the patch of grass I’d collapsed on last time. But everything was changed around. I found a plastic chair and slumped into it. My mom came and found me. She was excited; I was relieved. For well over an hour I’d felt like I was going to fall apart, but here I was intact. No tears like last time; no medical tent.

I had no idea how I’d finished. Of course I’d hoped for a faster time; the question now was, given the detour in the course, was this even an improvement? My mom was convinced I’d finished higher; she guessed around 150 riders had come through before me. It was a long time before I found the gumption to go check the results.

I had butterflies in my stomach as I approached the postings. I scanned down the time column, looking for 7:18:00, and found my name. My mom’s guess was darn close: I was 155th. That’s 34 places higher than I’d finished before. Not bad. I scanned up the results list, honing in on the “pays” (country) column, looking for “ETA” (Etats-Unis)—and, happily, not finding it: no American had beaten me. Being the top American had been one of my goals for the race.

Turning from the board, I encountered a fairly large cyclist, vaguely familiar, grinning from ear to ear. He thrust out his hand. “Great job,” he said, in an accent I couldn’t place. “I was one of those guys you towed along on the descent and I wanted to thank you for all your work.” Man. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me, or why. We shook hands and parted, and now I had a big grin of my own.

Still, I was surprised that after all my training and my greater knowledge of the course, my result was so similar to the time before. My official time was 07:19:42, vs. 07:27:23 in 2003. Three minutes of this improvement was a simple logistic matter of getting to the start line earlier and avoiding traffic. Pondering this has settled me into a fatalistic view: I could probably approach my conditioning for such a race, and my pacing during it, in any of a hundred different ways and chances are, with more or less pain or anguish, I’d achieve about the same result—a result that was predestined by my genes, and by the circumstances of the first thirty-seven years of my life. I guess I can live with that.

My brothers were a long time in showing up: not long after I passed the grizzly crash scene on the descent of the Glandon, the Marmotte organizers had shut down the race for an hour and a half so they could get an ambulance up there. Geoff and Bryan had been stuck behind the road closure. But now they arrived intact and in great spirits. We all had stories for days about our ride in the French Alps….

My Stats 

• Placing: 155th out of 4,134 finishers (62nd in my 30-39 age category, out of 1,295); about 2,000 riders dropped out
• Diploma: Gold
• Real time: 7 hours 18 minutes 0 seconds rolling time
• Real average speed: 15.0 mph
• Official time: 7 hours 19 minutes 42 seconds (includes stops and time spent getting from my staging area to the official start line)
• Official average speed: 14.7 mph
• My climbing stats:
• 3,565 ft/hr on Col du Glandon (262 watts, 0.35 horsepower) at 157 bpm;
• 3,381 ft/hr on Col du Télégraphe (264 watts, 0.35 hp) at 158 bpm;
• 3,002 ft/hr on Col du Galibier (237 watts, 0.32 hp) at 153 bpm;
• 2,941 ft/hr on Alpe d’Huez (226 watts, 0.3 hp) at 147 bpm
• Time heart rate above 160 bpm: 19 min (compared to 1 hr 44 min during Marmotte ’03)
• Average heart rate: 152 beats per minute (80% of maximum), not including descents (vs. 153 bpm, 81% in ‘03)

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From the Archives: Return to La Marmotte - Part I

Introduction

I used to be an occasional contributor to the Daily Peloton . A few years ago, server problems took the magazine offline. Since then it’s come back up, but all of their archives are gone. I don’t know if these will ever be restored, so over time I will re-post my Daily Peloton stories here. What follows concerns my return visit to La Marmotte, a brutal bike race in the French Alps that crushed me like a grape my first time out. (Update: Part II now posted!)

What is La Marmotte?

La Marmotte is a “cyclosportive” (like a granfondo), which pits riders against each other but also scores each rider according to his or her time. The top riders really race, while the less sportive aim for a bronze, silver, or gold “diploma.” Many of the 6,000+ riders are just hoping to finish. The Marmotte route is a 100-mile circuit over three of the toughest Alpine passes of the Tour de France, followed by the 8-mile slog up the legendary Hors Categorie Alpe d’Huez, for a total of about 17,000 feet of climbing.

Previously…

I rode La Marmotte in 2003 and completely cracked about halfway through, limping for some fifty miles to the finish as rider after rider passed me. I returned to France this July [i.e., 2006] to have another crack at it. (You can read my 2003 story by clicking here.) I finished that report with this declaration: “Now that I know the course, and what not to do, it seems a shame not to put that knowledge to use … so I hereby resolve to return to France one day to settle my score with La Marmotte…”

My Preparation

In 2003, this race punished me severely for overestimating my condition. This year I decided if I trained harder maybe I’d get off a little easier on race day. I developed a standard weekday training ride featuring over 4,000 feet of vertical gain in under 25 miles, with two one-mile climbs averaging 10% and a third climb of two miles at 11. I nicknamed this ride the “Hill Climb Extravaganza,” or “HCE” for short, and a number of my teammates either adopted the format, decried it as needlessly difficult, or both.

When the weather sucked (we had a record 29 days of rain in March alone), I rode through it, or endured a couple hours on the trainer. Several times I was turned around by snow on Mount Diablo. My new training regimen brought to my mind a notion from the novel The Body Artist by Don DeLillo: “You are making your own little totalitarian society ... where you are the dictator, absolutely, and also the oppressed people.” (Quote used by permission of the Wallace Literary Agency.)

Of course I had to keep my regimen from cutting too far into my home life, so I made a tradition of heading out just before dawn. I’d get home just as my kids (age three and five) were getting out of bed; often, one would bring me juice and stretch out with me on the living room floor afterward.

This time around two of my brothers joined me for the race, and our mom came along to support us.

Recon

We arrived in France five days before the race so we could ride some of the climbs beforehand. We learned that, due to roadwork, the course would take a detour near the top of the Col de la Croix de Fer, heading instead over the Col du Glandon. The descent of the Glandon is trickier than that of the Croix de Fer. We heard from a fellow hotel guest that a very accomplished amateur racer died on this descent the previous year, having crashed on a switchback.

On the Tuesday before the race we rode up Alpe d’Huez. In my training run prior to my first Marmotte, I rode the climb in 47 minutes; this year, it took 55. After all that training, what could be the problem? Alas, this practice ride confirmed what I’d been trying to ignore all year: my endurance had improved, but I wasn’t climbing that well. I was a good seven pounds heavier than in 2003, and felt it.

Determined to master my dread of Col du Glabier, the mythic mountain pass that so destroyed me last time, I rode it with my brothers the next day. For the most part we road easy, but near the top hammered a bit. It was cold and windy up there, and just starting to rain . . . totally epic. By the top my heart rate climbed precipitously even as my power was dropping off, but it didn’t matter. I was controlling my pace, feeling like I was in charge instead of the mountain. Maybe the Galibier was just flesh and blood like me, I thought. Oh, but wait—of course it isn’t. It’s rock, and harder than any man. I was making no sense. Must have been the altitude.

The Race

Race day: July 8, 2006. I slept poorly the night before, because my brother Geoff was snoring. He slept poorly too, because I kept hitting him. After a pasta breakfast we made it to the start good and early. Based on my top-200 finish in 2003, I got to start in the third group, numbers 400-2,000. (My brothers were way farther back in the 4,000s, so I wouldn’t see them until the finish.) I waited around in the cold for an hour. You’ve never seen such a frigid bunch of low-fat racer types. Goose bumps, shivering, chattering teeth….

The race started, and I went out hard. At the base of the Col du Glandon, I could see the leaders, minutes up the road, led by a car with flashing lights. Well, maybe I could catch some of them.

On the Glandon, I kept in mind what a couple of Marmotte veterans had advised me: keep your heart rate about five beats lower than you normally would. I did about 157 bpm, putting out 280 watts, instead of 162 bpm and 300 watts. The riders were fluid around me as I passed some and were overtaken by others. Some guys I’d see several times, like they couldn’t figure out a good rhythm.

I came upon a rider who looked especially accomplished. His pedaling was fluid, his back straight, his posture relaxed, and above all I had the sense he was holding something back, not straining himself. I rode behind him awhile, judging how consistent his pace was. Sure enough, my heart rate and power were totally steady. It was like cruise control. I figured I’d pace myself on this guy.

We passed a couple of spectators who called out encouragement. We both said “Merci,” and the guy looked at me. In that one word I’d showcased my terrible French pronunciation. “Nederlander?”  he asked me. In a way, I was flattered. Being recognized as American is, to me, somehow like being recognized as a tourist. I paused. How to answer? In French it’s “Etats-Unis,” but where was this guy from? “No, America,” I answered. I immediately wished I’d said “United States.” I felt like a redneck saying “Amer’ca.” The rider didn’t seem to care, though. We chatted a bit. He said he was from Belgium, from the Dutch-speaking region. “Like Boonen,” he grinned.

The Belgian and I kept the same pace the whole way up the Col du Glandon, and though I had the strange sensation of loafing, I held my position and felt I was still pretty close to the front of the race. I’d followed the five-heartbeats rule … was this holding too much back? I wasn’t too worried—the rest of the course would give me plenty of opportunity to use up any “extra” energy.

Toward the top, despite the surprisingly thick mass of spectators, I spotted my mom right away in her bright orange East Bay Velo Club jersey. We’d forgotten to practice passing up the musette bag, but it went without a hitch. I was so relieved—there were so many things (e.g., parking, congestion) that could have prevented my mom from making it up there. I stuffed my pockets full of gels and put fresh bottles in my cages without losing a pedal stroke. I heard my mom call after me: “Go, tiger!” Where’d she get that? I guess it had been about twenty years since she’d watched me in a race. (My mom would go on to have her own Marmotte adventure, rocking out to Pink Floyd while threading past throngs of cars and straggling riders and navigating a shortcut to Alpe d’Huez that took her over a road barely wider than the car, with a sheer cliff on one side.)

I got a slow start to the descent as I put on my jacket, and lost contact with the Belgian. Coming around one of the early switchbacks I came upon a chilling sight: a rider had crashed and was sprawled on the side of the road. He wasn’t moving, and blood pooled beneath his head. A couple course marshals were attending to him. The race was pretty split up at this point, as lots of guys had grabbed food or water. I passed a number of racers on the winding road, and though not all of them were going blindingly fast, everybody looked confident and capable.

I pushed on, and after a while had the strange sense of being utterly alone. Nobody in sight ahead of me, and nobody behind. What the hell? Had I taken a wrong turn? It was eerie.

Eventually I caught a few more riders, a really fast guy caught us from behind, and as the road flattened and straightened we started to gather into a small pack. At the bottom of the descent, near St. Jean de Maurienne, we caught a very large group, at least sixty guys. Oddly, they weren’t going that fast. I realized why: we had a bit of a headwind, and there was little incentive for anybody to drag this giant group along by himself. Nor was it easy to motivate a small number of guys to pull hard. Say I got five guys to hammer with me: we’d each do a fifth of the work for the next ten miles, getting us only incrementally closer to the unknown number of riders ahead. Then we’d hit the base of the Col du Télégraphe with sixty daisy-fresh guys behind us. But going it alone would be even worse. I tried riding off and opening a big gap, hoping some guys would jump across, but nobody did.

Once I resigned myself to rolling along at 20 miles per hour with the group, it was pretty fun. It wasn’t hard, of course, and I got to hear idle chatter in half a dozen languages. This brought home the fact that I was actually racing in another country, in a truly international field—exactly the kind of thing I’d fantasized about as a kid. I’ve never really gotten over the notion that what we call bike racing in the U.S. can feel like a facsimile of the real sport as it’s practiced in Europe. Sure, we have our big races, like the Tour of California, but those are for the pros. The average amateur event in the U.S. is a rinky-dink criterium in a business park, with nobody in attendance who isn’t himself racing. Sure, it’s fast, and hard, but you never feel like you’re involved in something big. We have our epic courses, of course, like the Death Ride, but those aren’t races. People start whenever they feel like it, most just hoping to finish. It’s hard to feel like an elite racer when you’re passing some guy on a mountain bike who hit the road at 5 a.m. What the U.S. needs is a cyclosportive circuit, and maybe 10,000 more superb riders. Then I wouldn’t have to cross the Atlantic to get this rush.

Just before the start of the Télégraphe, I came across the Belgian guy again. We started the climb in the front of the group. “This is good,” he said. “Just keep an even pace, and most of these guys will fall away.” Sure enough, as the climb progressed our group thinned out until we were basically alone, occasionally passing somebody and occasionally being passed.

We discussed our strategy: he, too, had been advised to ride at five bpm below his normal level. We both had the same main goal: to finish in seven hours or less. This was his first Marmotte, but he’d discussed the race at length with an experienced friend who said that it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to get from the top of the Galibier to the base of Alpe d’Huez. Leaving an hour for that climb, we’d have to reach the Galibier summit at hour 4:45. We weren’t sure how long the Galibier would take, but by the top of the Télégraphe we both had the feeling we were a bit behind schedule.

I still had a full bottle of energy drink, and had been diligently eating my gels. We both stopped to fill a bottle, losing no more than ten or fifteen seconds. We flew down through Valloire to the base of the Galibier and started to climb again. I was feeling a bit stressed: it didn’t look possible to reach the summit by 4:45. Was I going too easy? I felt great, like maybe I’d held too much back. Maybe it was time to pick up the pace. On the other hand, my goal of seven hours was somewhat arbitrary; who ever said I could achieve that, anyway? Maybe I was pacing myself just right; after all, last time I’d done this race I went out too hard and paid dearly. What to do? I took it up a notch. My heart rate immediately began to climb. Was I being foolish? I wished I had some Yoda figure to come to me in a vision and tell me exactly how to proceed.

Instead, I heard from the Belgian, right behind me: “Not too hard. Keep it even.” I paused. Who was this guy, anyway? Sure, he was smooth and everything, but how could I know he wasn’t just taking advantage of me? Maybe he just needed my size for the descent. He wasn’t one of those tiny little climbers (the Dutch call them “pocket climbers”) who can’t roll downhill worth a damn, but neither was he big enough to punch through the wind like I could. (We’d both noted this on the short descent to Valloire.) What if he realized he wasn’t as strong, and that his best bet was to get me to hold back, just enough for him to keep up? On the other hand, maybe he was smarter. I finally decided to hold back. I wasn’t going to crack again and limp along for the rest of the race. Not again.

Well, a lot can happen on a long climb like the Galibier. Ten or fifteen minutes after my tactical crossroads, I found myself struggling to keep on the Belgian’s wheel. He hadn’t sped up—he was as consistent as ever. I was simply tiring out. My legs got heavier and heavier and I no longer felt like the master of my pace. The mountain was getting the better of me. I took the lead again—a psychological game, fooling myself into confidence. (After all, I told myself, how could I be weak when I’m leading this guy?) I tried every trick in the book to shore up my psyche. I tried to smile, like Ivan Basso and Chris Horner (and George Mount before them). But doubt kept creeping in. Not despair—I was still in the game—but serious doubt. A climb like that can really crush your spirit.

With about five kilometers to go I was really worried: how far would my performance slip? I really needed a race radio with Johan Bruyneel reassuring me: “Come on Dana. Come on. Okay, Dana, don’t panic, don’t panic, eh? You can do this. You’re the best, eh? Okay, 5K to the summit. Very good. Very good. Come on. That’s it. Yes.” Instead all I had was my own inner voice: “Who said you could climb? Look at you. You’re huge. You weren’t made for this. What are you doing here, anyway?” I was having an epiphany on the mountain: I was going against nature—the Galibier, to be precise, which was the evil Mother Nature of the margarine commercial.

We passed a guy who had cracked. I could tell by how he was slumped over the handlebars, and by his sunken face, and by his expression. Poor bastard. He looked miserable, and hateful. He hated me for passing him. He hated himself for having cracked. He hated the mountain for what it was doing to him. My heart went out to the guy. Thinking back three years to my horrible trial on the Galibier, I knew exactly what he was going through. I thanked my lucky stars I hadn’t cracked this year. At least, not thus far….

To be continued…

Check back next week for the second half of my tale: the heart(rate) of darkness!

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From the Archives - Riding La Marmotte - Part II

Introduction

This is the second part of the heart-wrenching (for me) tale of racing La Marmotte, a 108-mile cyclosportive race in the French Alps I did in 2003. For the first half, click here.

La Marmotte Part II – July 5, 2003

At the halfway point, the race seemed to be going just about perfectly: after my audacious full-throttle ascent of the Col du Télégraphe, my heart rate was back down to a sensible 162 bpm, my average speed was 16.7 mph (seemingly on track to best that of the previous year’s winner), and I found myself in a small group of very elite looking guys, exceeding my own expectations.

There was just one problem: it was here that I cracked.

Something had given. Some bodily threshold had been exceeded. Something had gone wrong with the human machine. There was no sound of the transmission dropping out and landing on the ground, but I did feel that sudden loss of power your car suffers when, say, the timing belt breaks, leaving you just enough juice to get over to the shoulder if you’re lucky. But I wasn’t lucky: I had half the race to go.

Perhaps one day sports medicine will have everything figured out, and the exact cause of such a meltdown will be easily and precisely diagnosed. It wasn’t a blood sugar crash; I’ve had that and know what it feels like. This was different. I found myself struggling just to keep going. The short descent to the feed station at Valloire had become long, and felt like a climb.

Had I missed it? I asked a couple of guys in the group where the food was; actually, I tried to ask, but in my turmoil couldn’t form the sentence properly in French. Or maybe the words were right but the volume was too low. Finally a guy seemed to understand: he motioned toward his mouth and said “manger?” I think French wasn’t his first language, either. I nodded. “One kilometre,” he said. It ended up being two, and very long ones at that.

The feed station was a couple of card tables. The guys working it kept asking if I wanted water. They’d evidently not heard of Gatorade, the word I thought would best convey the idea of caloric drink. I started shouting, “Sucre, sucre!” and one of the guys finally got the point. He filled my bottles with a liquid the color of weak lemonade or dirty water. I grabbed a few handfuls of dried apricots before pedaling onward, beginning the bleak climb up the Col du Galibier. I cannot recall feeling more despondent, before or since. Where was my body, the good one that had worked so well? What was happening to me? And how could I possibly make it all the way to the finish, with the fearsome Col du Galibier and Alpe d’Huez still to come?

The energy drink was so weak I thought it might be water. I plodded along, already in my lowest gear, not quite believing what I still had to do. My legs were now impotent Wiffle bats, and either my heart wasn’t being asked for more than 145 beats per minute, or it couldn’t fill a bigger order. Everything had gone slack; pedaling hard was like trying to pluck a broken guitar string. I started getting passed by my competitors. Finding the road ahead too depressing to contemplate, I stared miserably down into the ravine off to my right, and saw an actual marmot down there. It was running, half tumbling, and I was surprised how big it was. Shaped like a groundhog, it was the size of a dog. It finally tumbled through a hole in the ground into its underground lair. Where could I go?

I ground my way up the climb, looking down occasionally at the switchbacks below, seeing rider after lone rider, the original packs having exploded long ago. Though many of my competitors looked as wretched as I felt, others had doubtless been pacing themselves, biding their time, and would finish strong. Occasionally I would marvel at how quickly I was gaining elevation—the Galibier forces you to—but at other times I would look up at the mountain ahead, the dizzying switchbacks, the increasingly stark landscape, and feel despair beating at my door.

It was an amazing road, very exposed, rather bleak but oddly pretty against the backdrop of formidable snow-covered peaks. As I passed above the timber line, vegetation became sparse and the air grew chilly. Though it had been hot on the Télégraphe, there was still snow up here. I ate apricots as often as I could (even in the cold air, the sweat leaching through my jersey had completely rehydrated them), and kept working on my bottles until they were empty.

The road narrowed. Signs posted by the race organizers taunted me with the number of kilometers remaining. The remaining switchbacks, of which there were quite a few, were all laid out before me, in plain view, a scaffold of fiendishly steep roads, like a parking garage, and I began to bitterly resent the very idea of subjecting humans to such a thing. This climb is sick, I thought. The whole enterprise seemed an abomination.

My calf muscles started cramping up, for the first time in my life. They threatened to go from pliant muscle to useless stone. Each time a calf hardened, I had to back off and let it recover, over and over. I was on the verge of panic, fearing my legs would lock up and I’d tip over.

Toward the summit, spectators began to appear. There is a certain breed of French spectator—maybe not even a breed but a single one, though I noted his presence often enough to assume a whole race of men—who is a connoisseur of suffering, who studies it intently like a sommelier sampling a fine wine. I encountered one such fellow, a small man with a dark beard, on the last kilometer of Galibier. To say he cheered me on isn’t exactly right: he saw right into me, touring my pain as if exploring a dark cave. To borrow from Poe:

Deep into that darkness peering,
long [he] stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams
no mortal ever dared to dream before.

He made a gesture, holding his hands low, palms up, fingers curling and uncurling, and murmured gently in French, making a throaty rumbling sound like the burbling coo of a pigeon. It was encouragement, to be sure, but scaled to the nature of my endeavor, so much more attuned than someone shrieking “Go, go!” or “Allez, allez!” I don’t know that I felt inspired, but at least I felt appreciated, that I hadn’t suffered unseen. 

The very top of the climb finally came into clear view, and I realized this was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen, on as perfectly clear a day as could possibly be. The distant snow-covered peaks looked like you could reach out and touch them. The atmosphere, completely free of glare, fog, and mist, seemed to shimmer somehow, and sparkle. And yet, I couldn’t enjoy it—imagine trying to take in a masterpiece of landscape painting while somebody strikes you repeatedly with a hammer. As I crested the summit, cheered by a large handful of what seemed, at least in my quasi-delusional state, to be a group of old French peasant women from the countryside, I felt that I would weep, if only I had the energy.

Once I began the descent from Galibier, I felt like a bike racer again. For maximum aerodynamic advantage, I didn’t put my jacket on. Sure, the air was frigid, but what’s a little cold when your entire body is screaming out in anguish? I took the curves good and fast, and though I only passed a couple of guys, I’m sure I extended my tenuous lead over many of the riders behind me. Moreover, I was going fast, and for awhile could forget how weak I was. I didn’t kid myself that the resting would do me any good—that would be like “fixing” a TV with a burned out tube by letting it sit awhile. But as the road flattened out somewhat and a group of six or eight guys caught me, I was able to do my share of the work and we were making good time.

It’s close to 30 miles from the top of the Galibier to the base of Alpe d’Huez, and I was relieved to be in a pack as we were fighting a stiff headwind. One of the guys in the group was massive—I reckon he was a Dutchman—and he and I took up the bulk of the work. Since powering on the flats uses different muscles from climbing, I was riding fairly well and my spirits improved a bit. (Going through tunnels in a group, by the way, is kind of a trip. Needless to say you have to have complete trust in your fellow riders; you can’t see each other too well in the dark and have to be very smooth. I enjoyed the visual effect of seeing only the silhouette of the rider ahead of me, like a paper cutout against the light at the end of the tunnel.)

Around 10 miles from Bourg d’Oisans (my grasp of distances, in fact of numbers in general, was shaky at this point), we hit a small climb steep enough to require the small chainring. To my horror, I threw my chain. A guy in the pack pushed me along while I tried to shift the chain back on. A nice gesture (if also pragmatic), but it was in vain. I had to stop to put the chain back on, and watched miserably as the group rolled away without me. Fighting the headwind by myself the rest of the way to the base of Alpe d’Huez, still with empty bottles, losing even more time to the crush of riders behind me, brought my morale all the way back down to Galibier levels, maybe even lower.

I rolled into the second feed station, drank a big bottle or two of water, and ate a million orange slices while a woman filled my bottle with Coke. This was the same woman, by the way, who served the hot lunch back in elementary school, whom I would watch slopping the food grumpily on the tray on those sad days when I forgot my sack lunch. The intervening decades have done nothing to improve her cheerless attitude. But then what was I expecting, Mary Lou Retton?

I hit the road again, pleased to have, at last, a full-strength sugary drink to help me up the climb. Then I remembered my emergency medical stash: two Tylenol and a NoDoz in my jersey pocket. I reached in there and felt around, and all my fingers found was a paste of completely dissolved tablets. I considered smearing this into my mouth, but it was hot now and I’d probably hurl.

Just before the road started to go up, a large pack of riders, maybe 10 or 12, passed me at a good clip. It was a menacing reminder that, poorly as I’d been riding, I still had a vast number of racers behind me and a potentially decent position to defend. My ride time at this point was a bit under 6 hours and 15 minutes. If (hypothetically speaking) I rode Alpe d’Huez as fast as I’d done it in training, my goal of 7 hours for the whole course was still within reach.

But of course I wasn’t going nearly as fast as before. It was a slog.

I can’t recall exactly when I got Ravel’s “Bolero” stuck in my head. Normally my brain chooses rock music as accompaniment for cycling. A short climb on a training ride might invoke the guitar solo from Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”; on a particularly fast team ride recently my mental deejay chose Beck’s “Loser” (perhaps for ironic effect); and on the Col de la Croix de Fer earlier in this race I’d somehow dug up “Gates of Steel” by Devo. I almost never get classical music. But the utterly repetitive, plodding dum-de-de-de-dum, de-de-de-dum, de-de-de-dum-dum-dum foundation of “Bolero” matched my cadence and my eternity of rote suffering pretty well. In fact, my fried brain left out most of the more interesting melodies laid on top of this backdrop, and created a new extended dance mix of just the dum-de-de-de-dum business. It was the quasi-musical equivalent of a prison sentence, and thus perfectly appropriate.

Rider after rider passed me. Looking for some vestige of athletic dignity, I made a habit of checking their numbers. A low number meant a high finisher last year whom I’d caught and dropped earlier—slightly less demoralizing than a high number, indicating someone who’d not finished high before, maybe a first-time Marmotte rider like me, and moreover someone who may have started well behind me, maybe even minutes behind me, who had paced himself perfectly throughout the ride and would use the entire Alpe d’Huez climb to pass people. The majority of the riders overtaking me did have low numbers, and were obviously classy riders I couldn’t be ashamed of losing to. But among them were also high numbered riders whose form wasn’t even that good, whose bikes were older and lesser than mine, who didn’t have team jerseys—riders I know wouldn’t be passing me had I not completely botched the race by going too hard on the Col du Télégraphe.

The switchbacks on Alpe d’Huez are numbered, in descending order as you climb, so in theory you can mark your progress, like a countdown. But this only helps when you feel like you’re actually making progress, like the distance between switchbacks isn’t stretching out before you.

Alpe d’Huez had a lot more spectators than the Galibier, but many were there to cheer specific riders, and others seemed to be observing the spectacle without really engaging with it emotionally. Sure, a great many did cheer, but I couldn’t help notice others who looked at me with pity. Others seemed to consider me almost contemptuously, as you would look upon a scabby, humiliated dog wearing a giant satellite-dish collar.

Here and there I encountered the connoisseur-of-suffering type, always a small, bearded Frenchman, always making the finger-curling gesture and the rumbling burble of encouragement. (Could it have been one guy, somehow zipping ahead on the course? Or maybe a hallucination?) In most cases what I was seeing was not a lack of enthusiasm, but rather a kind of restraint, as though spectators were thoughtfully letting me die in peace.

One fellow told me, in French, that if I would sit down in the saddle he’d give me a push. Unfortunately my sluggish brain only parsed the sentence some 10 or 15 seconds after the fact, so I didn’t sit down; even so, he did give me as good a push as possible without crashing me. The climb went on and on, and finally after the last switchback I knew I was near the end. At this point I saw two riders in my sights and decided to pass them. After all, I had to feel like I was beating somebody. I managed to get by them, but they weren’t exactly fighting.

Finally I reached the top. Alpe d’Huez had taken more than an hour and fifteen minutes, almost half an hour longer than it had in training. I hit the flat section at the top and began sprinting, not for any particular reason other than to get the last bit over with. There was fencing set up along the sides, and some turns, and thick crowds, and I did have the thrilling feeling of going pretty fast. Not because I was, of course, but because I was finally on a flat road—it’s the same phenomenon that produces the feeling of floating over the ground after you’ve been on a treadmill for half an hour. A couple hundred meters from the line I even had the presence of mind to zip up my jersey. The road was slightly downhill now and I flew toward the line, spotting Erin and my mom right there on the sidelines, cheering me on. I crossed over the black pad that stopped my timing chip, but was so disoriented I didn’t grasp its purpose. For some reason I expected some official to come wave a wand of some kind at my ankle. I tried to pose a question to the riders around me and got nothing but exhausted, blank stares. Finally I realized I was really done.

My family found me right away and my mom conjured up a ice-cold Coke.

I straddled my bike for awhile, trying to figure out what to do. I could barely stay up, but climbing off the bike meant lifting a leg high enough to clear the saddle, and I wasn’t sure that was possible. So I just slumped over the bars and mourned my awful ride.

I managed to dismount and collapsed on a patch of grass. I wasn’t even prepared to deal with the Coke. Erin was excited, figured I’d had a great ride, and had no idea how emotionally crushed I was. She asked me how it went and after I felt I’d regained enough composure to talk, I tried to answer her. But what could I say? “I blew it,” I finally said. A wave of feeling poured over me, something between relief, awe, and despondence. After six months of intense training, burning off more than 20 pounds of extra body mass, and all the psyching up for this one event, I almost had a brilliant ride but instead fell far short. What difference might better judgment have made? I was having difficulty explaining myself, and difficulty trying to eat, and eventually found myself sobbing into some orange slices.

Erin couldn’t understand. I’d looked pretty fast to her, having finished before she’d really expected me to—especially, she said, since the form and physique of the riders who’d come in before me seemed, to her, much better suited to such a course.

I lay back on the grass and Erin held a jacket over me to block the sun. She was a bit concerned. I didn’t look so good.

After I rested awhile I felt better, and after a kiss from my little daughter was able to smile a bit.

Even so, Erin insisted I get checked out in the medical tent. One medic looked me over and then called in another guy, a big bearded dude with yellow teeth and cigarette breath, who explained that my body was having trouble re-oxygenating. He talked for some time, and the odd thing is I understood everything he said, though he was speaking French at a very fast clip. He prescribed pasta. Within half an hour I felt well enough to pick up my diploma and medal, turn in my timing chip, and make it back to the car.

Looking back now, I’m not completely displeased with my performance. As badly as I blew up on the Télégraphe, I did manage to salvage the ride somewhat, and I only missed my (albeit arbitrary) goal by 23 minutes. And to have achieved the fitness I needed even to compete in such a thing is something I hadn’t done in 12 years. Now that I know the course, and what not to do, it seems a shame not to put that knowledge to use … so I hereby resolve to return to France one day to settle my score with La Marmotte…

My Stats

*I don’t have the rate of vertical gain for the Télégraphe or the Galibier... I was too shattered to remember to start and stop the lap timer on my altimeter.

Notes

• The winner, Laurens Ten Dam, was from Holland and finished in 6:07:04, a new course record. [Ten Dam went on to ride for pro teams including Rabobank, Giant-Alpecin, and CCC, and finished 9th in the 2014 Tour de France.]
• The second place rider was also Dutch, and finished only 41 seconds behind. (My wife, driving up Alpe d’Huez during the race, was able to watch these two duking it out.) Third place went to a Frenchman, 3½ minutes behind second.
• The top woman finisher was French, 36 years old, and placed a very impressive 50th with a time of 6:55:19. There were 72 female finishers under age 40, and 36 who were 40 or older.
• The top finisher in the men’s 40-49 age group was a Frenchman, age 42, who finished in 10th overall with a time of 6:29:14. The top men’s 50-59 was age 54, from Andorra in a stellar time of 6:49:35 (31st overall). The top men’s 60+ was 62, from France, in 8:03:04 (496th overall).
• The youngest men’s finisher was 16, from France, in 10:00:43 for 2,475th place. The youngest woman was 20, from Holland, in 10:32:40 for 3,039th place. There were two 71-year-old men, one from Belgium and one from France, finishing in 11:50:47 (4,036th place) and 12:52:26 (4,457th place) respectively. The oldest woman was 48, from Holland, in 13:05:39 (4,486th place).
• The last finisher clocked in at 13:49:40, an average speed of 7.9 mph.

One American beat me: a 42-year-old who placed 91st (20th in his age category) with a time of 7:07:21. I’d hoped to be the top American. But then, I’d hoped for a lot of things.

Here is a breakdown of where the 2003 finishers hailed from. (Not listed: the ~2,000 who dropped out.)

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